Abstract

In the last few years it has become fashionable to 'rethink' the heritage of the western secularist modernity and claim that it is, basically, Christian. One possibility of proving this thesis is to show that the founding fathers of secularism themselves argued from an - at least implicitly - Christian point of view, above all when setting up the normative standards for politics. One such deliberately secular founding father is Thomas Hobbes, and contrary to Christian or religious interpretations of his political philosophy two things can be shown: firstly his political philosophy doesn't depend upon religion or religious commitments and, furthermore, the underlying systematic arguments in favour of a political theology are not plausible, let alone effective.